


Roll for Initiative

by bookwyrmling



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Canon-Typical Behavior, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Dungeons & Dragons Campaign, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Graphic Violence - Dungeons & Dragons, Post-Canon, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-23 23:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19160857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwyrmling/pseuds/bookwyrmling
Summary: “Are you working on any art projects right now?”“Shits!”“I’m allowed to ask!” he defended himself. “You’ve always loved art and then you just suddenly dropped it all and flew across the country.”“I’m getting my life together!” Larissa argued.“It feels more like you’re running away."Larissa glared out her apartment window, hiding from the late summer heat as her air conditioner burned through her paycheck. “You’d know about that, wouldn’t you?” she asked, not quite regretting the words as much as she knew she should.Sometimes it takes a run-in at a frat party and a Dungeons & Dragons campaign to realize how much life there is left to live.





	Roll for Initiative

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was made thanks to the wonderful cheering on of Sora's Heart Hotel. Thank you, all! Special thanks to my wonderful betas: Faia, Kylie and Anna. And extra double special thanks to Faia for creating the wonderful art piece that lead to this fic. And final thank you to the OMGCP Reverse Bang's wonderful mods who not only put this whole event together, but were also so quick to work with me when life stuff happened.
> 
> Check, Please! belongs to Ngozi Ukazu.

Kent sighed as he shuffled his papers in front of him. “I’ll have you know this is the dorkiest, nerdiest thing I have ever done.”

“And as your teammate for the last ten years,” Owen Troy argued, “I’ll give you nerdiest, but this is definitely not the dorkiest.”

“Yeah, no. It’s neither.”

The entire table started cracking up as Kent scowled over the folding screen Larissa had set up. She smirked at him, then shooed him to prevent any prying eyes.

Kent sat back in his seat and crossed his arms. “Alright, alright, let’s just get on with this.”

If he was trying for nonchalant, he missed his mark and ended up straddling it with a pout. Larissa rolled her eyes and turned to the table including three hockey players, a preschool teacher and a coworker. “So as I was saying,” she pressed the group back to map in the middle of the table, “the merchant caravan you were all traveling with turns a corner in the ravine you’re traversing through only to have goblins jump out from caves and from behind rocks in front and around you. Behind you, from the top of the ravine, boulders crash and block your escape. What do you do?”

Eddy frowned at the board. “But why are they attacking?”

“Because they’re goblins,” Siobhan said with a roll of her eyes.

“And?” Blake immediately cut in.

“They want to steal,” Owen added. “They’re thieves and marauders.”

“Hitcho takes offense to this,” Blake argued. “You are literally working and traveling with a goblin right now! Hitcho is a goblin!”

Larissa threw a few dice behind her screen as the arguing continued. “A goblin archer looses an arrow, hitting Purrs for…” She paused to roll another dice then nodded to herself and confirmed, “...four damage.”

“Hey!” Kent objected. “I wasn’t even one of the people talking this time!”

“What. Do. You. Do?” she asked pointedly.

Eddy frowned then raised her hand from the other end of the table. “I attack back?”

Lardo grinned and picked up her d20s.

“Alright, everyone!” she said as she loosed her dice behind the screen. “Roll for initiative.”

* * *

 

Kent scratched at his head then shoved his cap back on, pulling the bill low on his face to at least attempt some level of anonymity here. Twenty-eight years old and here he was crashing a frat party filled with kids ten years his junior. He was going to kill Greaser when he found him. He was going to kill Bones for dragging him into this.

“You’re sure he’s here?” he asked Bones, shouting loud to be heard over the music and drunk coeds that were shouting and waving at them.

Bones shrugged and held up his phone, a selfie of Greaser, a college girl smiling on either side and even more bodies in the background was on the screen. “According to his instagram,” he practically shouted back.

“Alright!” Kent decided. “You take back; I’ll take front. Text when you find him! Phones on vibrate and in your hand. Break!”

While Bones headed for the yard and the fence leading to the backyard, where Kent could hear the screaming and splashing of a pool, he took a deep breath, sent another frustrated look at the frat, and walked through the front door.

The music was louder inside, of course. And the smell of pot and booze was stronger, too. Fucking hell, if Greaser got caught with drugs in his system, Kent would skin him alive and then kill him. They didn’t need their newest rookie, drafted this summer, 12th overall, making those kind of media waves.

He wasn’t in the entryway or kitchen. He wasn’t in the line for the bathroom Kent got stuck accidentally waiting in for a few minutes, thinking it was just part of the crowd of the party. He wasn’t in the living room or dining room—and what sort of frat house had a dining room in the first place? Point to one person in this crowd that actually used a dining room. Kent didn’t even use a dining room.

Jeff did. But Jeff was also smart enough to hit Ignore when Bones had called him earlier that night.

Kent might not have minded the party so much, if he were being honest. The music was good. Alcohol and pot and sweat from dancing smelled a whole lot better than a locker room, too, though the overlying presence of Old Spice and Axe was the same. The problem was that it brought up a lot of memories he didn’t much like thinking about anymore.

Over the music pounding through the air and floor, Kent heard a cheer. He moved toward it, pushing through a group of dancers, past a couple making out against a door jamb, and finding himself in another room and another time.

Kent stared at the familiar face across the repurposed ping pong table in maybe only a little more shock than that face seemed to stare back at him with. Then again, at least he was known to live in Las Vegas. The last time Kent had seen this face had been in Massachusetts, even though the rest of the setting was similar enough.

Lardo shook off her shock with a smirk as she pulled back her shoulders, puffed out her chest and asked, “Come to get your ass whooped again, Parson?”

“Cap, you know her?”

Kent spared a glance for the slurring rookie he had been chasing down—the only reason he was at this UNLV frat party in the first place—and sighed his disappointment.

“It was December 2014, or as we Wellies called it: Epikegster,” Lardo began to orate, as if she was about to tell some epic tale and not the fact that he’d had his ass handed to him at beer pong while chasing after his ex like some pathetic dog waiting on the side of the road that didn’t realize his owner wasn’t coming back.

“She kicked my ass a few years ago,” he said to cut the story short, not quite ready to spend the night licking those wounds again.

“I wiped the floor with you,” Lardo smirked, not quite ready to let that glory go just yet.

“I managed to hold my own in Flip Cup, though,” Kent pointed out.

Lardo nodded in agreement and admitted, “You earned that belch.” She nodded over at Greaser, then, and asked, “That your rook?”

Kent looked at him, already beyond wasted and having trouble standing upright. “Unfortunately.” He sighed.

Greaser frowned, seeming to realize it was him they were talking about, before blowing past all that and grabbing onto Kent’s arm. “You gotta avenge me, cap! You gotta get her. I been trying and trying but I can’t beat her!”

“And you think I’m the one who can?” he asked, bewildered.

Greaser burped and sunk more of his weight against Kent as he bemoaned. “I can’t do it anymore.”

Kent looked across the table at a smirking Lardo. “Did you belch in his face?” he asked, hoping for at least that small victory.

Lardo flicked the ball in her hand up in the air and caught it without ever looking. “I wasn’t gonna show him pity like that.”

“Yeah, okay,” Kent sighed in surrender and immediate regret. He pulled Greaser’s phone out of his pocket and used the kid’s thumbprint to unlock the screen. “Here,” he said as he pressed the ringing phone back into Greaser’s hand then brought his hand up to his face. “Tell Bones where you are, okay?”

“Boooones!” Greaser shouted into the phone, “Parser’s fighting for my honor!”

Kent groaned and turned to the nearest person who seemed moderately sober and capable. “Make sure he doesn’t wander away until a guy called Bones comes to pick him up,” he asked of him.

The guy stared back in sheer surprise, but nodded.

“Thanks,” Kent said then turned back to find Lardo already pouring beer into her cups.

“Rack ‘em up, Parson,” she called over to him with a devilish grin. “I’m up for another ‘bout of insta fame.”

Kent flinched at the memory of the lashing his coaches and PR and his agent had each, independently, given him for that image and that whole night. He’d been both a few years younger and a few years dumber back then. “No pictures,” he stated. “I can’t be caught here with all these underage drinkers, participating in all this.” Not now that he was 28. He could see those headlines already.

Lardo frowned—In annoyance? In consideration?—but eventually nodded in agreement. Kent felt his shoulders loosen at that confirmation. No one else had seemed to recognize him just yet, but with his cap pulled down low and the lights lowered in the house, most people couldn’t see his face well enough to identify him without knowing him already.

“Challenger starts,” she said as Kent poured beer into his last cup.

The onlookers immediately broke out in a cheer for their champion. “LARDO! LARDO! LARDO!” resounded in the room.

“That a house rule?” Kent asked as someone else shouldered through to the front of the group.

“Fuck, Parser, really?” Bones asked and Kent shrugged. At least he wasn’t actually fighting.

“That’s a me rule,” Lardo answered, her hip cocked and arms crossed in easy confidence and deep-set pride. “Gotta have some kinda handicap to make things interesting.”

Kent snorted, but remembered his loss four years ago well enough. “Any other rules I need to be aware of?” he asked, instead.

Lardo nodded and held up her fingers as she ticked off: “Swatting is fine, but no fingering, no blowing.”

“Really?” Kent asked in jest. “That takes out all the fun.”

Lardo snorted, this time, and rolled her eyes, but quickly continued. “Rollbacks are trickshots only. Bouncing is one cup only. We shoot two and send-back. Re-rack at 6, 4, 3, 2. Got it?”

Kent hadn’t played in years, but he remembered enough to get by, though half of what Lardo had just said sounded like gibberish to him. “Got it.” He nodded. He’d figure it out as he played.

“Good.” Lardo smiled and held her hand out over the table. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Kent grabbed a ball from the rinse bucket, shook the water off, lined up his shot, double checked his elbow, and hammered it home. He grinned as the crowd around them began to get noisy at a possible competitor then reached for his second ball while Lardo downed the first cup he’d hit.

* * *

 

“So what brings you to Las Vegas?” Kent asked thirty minutes later after two losses, a rebuttal and a belch. He leaned against the wall on the side of the house, breathing in the pot and cigarette smoke heavy on the air from everyone else making use of this spot to light up and take a break. He sipped water out of a Solo cup. Lardo was the one with a blunt and lighter. “Bit far from Samwell.”

She breathed in a few quick puffs to get the blunt going then shoved her lighter in her pants pockets and took in a deep drag. “As if I didn’t graduate years ago?” she asked thirty seconds later as she let the smoke out. She smirked at his innocent shrug and said, “Sometimes you just wanna start fresh.”

Kent leaned back against the wall, feeling the dew of the desert night gathering along the wood slats soak through his shirt. “I get that,” he nodded sagely, his eyes closed to bask in the momentary distance from moving lights and loud sounds. It was still a roar, but at least he wasn’t in the middle of it all anymore. “Still doing your art?” he asked when he opened his eyes and looked back at Lardo.

She seemed surprised he’d remember. Honestly, Kent was surprised, as well. He’d hoped he’d forgotten everything about Zimms and his band by now, but apparently it was still tattooed into his brain because fuck everything.

Kent emptied the rest of his water into the bush beside him.

“No,” she replied heavily and Kent could hear a story behind the one word.

He didn’t say anything in response, not quite sure how to avoid the landmine he’d clearly just stepped on.

Lardo seemed to take it as a request for more detail as she took another puff and said, “You haven’t unlocked that backstory yet.”

“No art, whatsoever?” he asked, instead, remembering it was something she’d been really excited about when they’d talked last. “What about on the side?”

Lardo shrugged, blunt in her mouth. She pulled it back out without taking a hit. “Too expensive to be a hobby,” she spoke to her feet. “Most of my coworkers are either living in dorms or places just as small as mine, so I couldn’t even give anything I made away at this point,” she added acerbically.

It was a lot to unpack in those few words and Kent honestly didn’t feel close enough to the woman to even begin to do so. She was right. He hadn’t unlocked that backstory. “That’s a damn shame,” he said, instead. “People don’t know what they’re missing. Those projects you mentioned for your...portfolio? Sounded pretty awesome.” He grinned as he remembered the chirp-filled conversation they’d had while playing pong that first time. “What was it?” he asked and laughed, “Bedazzled jock straps? That’s the most Vegas thing I’ve ever heard.”

Lardo huffed and put out her blunt on the side of the house. “It was supposed to be a comment on the culture of toxic masculinity in men’s sports,” she grumbled as she tucked the rest of it away in an Altoids box, “not feed into another weird niche aspect of it.”

Kent laughed and shrugged. “I don’t really get all that meaning shit. Not enough college classes and a few too many hits to the head, maybe,” he joked with a wink. “I just like what I like and I always liked your style.”

After 10 seconds of silence, Kent’s smile dropped in concern, wondering if he’d said something wrong. He looked back over at Lardo to find her stiff, staring at him with surprised eyes. She blinked and dropped her gaze. “It’s whatever,” she said, her voice overflowing with forced nonchalance. “Art student chic,” she then snorted.

Kent chuckled, too, glad he hadn’t fucked that one up. That was when an idea had struck him.

“Hey,” he said, scooting along the wall until he could nudge her with his elbow. “Hey.”

Lardo looked over at him and raised an eyebrow.

“Want to become insta famous again?”

Lardo’s other eyebrow lifted to join the first.

 

**therealkentpurrson**  my butler ran into his old friend **_@larduanarts_ ** today. some things never change. _#tbt #on friday #larduanarts #styleeveniappreciate_

 

Kent smirked as he hit post on the selfie the two of them had just taken, having snagged a few shutter shades to pull off the look. With only an average piece of fence and some bushes behind them, their location would be unidentifiable.

Lardo’s phone vibrated once with the notification of the post and then, about thirty seconds later, began vibrating non-stop.

She laughed as she silenced her phone.

“Smart idea,” Kent said.

“Yeah…” Lardo admitted, “That’s gonna get old fast.”

Kent laughed that time.

* * *

 

**Holster**  GUYSGUYSGUYS

Attached: Screenshot of @therealkentpurrson’s instagram post of Lardo and Kent meeting again.

 

**Ransom**  TELL US LARDO

 

**Dex**  Holy fuck.

 

**Holster** LAAAAAARRRRDOOOOOO

 

**Nursey**  chill

 

**Ransom**  BROOOOO

**Ransom**  don’t just leave us hangin!!!

 

**Shitty**  Two down to earth dudes!

 

**Chowder**  Did you get his autograph?!

 

**Holster**  DON’T IGNORE US!!!

* * *

 

**1 Missed Call**  Shits

 

**1 Missed Call**  Rans

**1 Missed Call** Holtzy

 

**1 Missed Call**  Shits

**1 Missed Call**  Bitty

**1 Missed Call**  Rans

**1 Missed Call**  Shits

**1 Missed Call**  Holtzy

**1 Missed Call**  Shits

**1 Missed Call**  Bitty

**1 Missed Call**  Jack

* * *

 

“You have reached 617-763-8664. Please leave a message.”

_Beep!_

 

“Hey Lardo! It’s Chris. No one’s really heard from you in a while, so we just wanted to make sure you were doing well. Everyone misses you in group chat. Hope Vegas is going well for you! Tell Parson to stay out of Jones’s crease, okay? Don’t party too hard without us and let me know if you’re ever in the Bay Area so we can meet up! Bye!”

* * *

 

She would blame her distraction for why she didn’t check the caller ID before picking up.

“Lards?”

She froze for a moment, immediately recognizing that voice and the concern it held.

“Shits?” she finally greeted in reply, cautious in testing the waters, prepared to run away at the first sign of danger.

“You finally picked up,” he sighed in relief. Larissa could feel it rolling off of him. “We were all worried!”

Her shoulders tensed. “I’ve been busy,” she said, already feeling a rush of annoyance. They were going to end up fighting again. It had been one trainwreck after another since two weeks before they had officially broken up and it felt like no matter what she did she couldn’t stop the next one from happening any time they started talking.

She’d been avoiding Shitty’s calls for exactly that reason.

“You’re all the way out in Vegas on your own,” Shitty pressed, not paying any attention to the mood—as per usual. “Can’t we worry?”

“I’m doing fine,” Larissa argued back, her teeth and tongue feeling particularly sharp today. Work had been hectic this week, so she was already wound up. She really didn’t want to fight with Shits on top of it all. “And it’s none of your business anyway.”

“I’m still your friend.”

There was a lot of hurt between them. It had been building up and building up and they’d left it to sit after the break-up. Larissa could hear it in Shitty’s voice and it pulled at the shards in her heart, but she had already decided there was no going back down that path. Even their friendship was tenuous at best. She didn’t want to lose the years of memories and fun they had, but trust was sorely lacking on both sides.

“Then act like one,” Larissa said, instead of voicing all of her thoughts and feelings. It was easier to play friend and hope everything magically fixed itself. “Not my parent,” she pressed. “You’re not my keeper and I’m a fucking adult.”

“Okay,” Shitty said. “Okay.”

For a moment, Larissa thought she might have gotten through to him. That they might not have to fight today. That they could actually start to let go and let those wounds heal.

“Are you working on any art projects right now?” he asked.

“Shits!”

“I’m allowed to ask!” he defended himself. “You’ve always loved art and then you just suddenly dropped it all and flew across the country.”

“I’m getting my life together!” Larissa argued.

“It feels more like you’re running away,” Shitty said.

Larissa glared out her apartment window, hiding from the late summer heat as her air conditioner burned through her paycheck. “You’d know about that, wouldn’t you?” she asked, not quite regretting the words as much as she knew she should.

The beep telling her the call had disconnected wasn’t a surprise after that.

Larissa raised her arm over her head, ready to throw her phone at the ground before remembering she couldn’t afford a replacement. She collapsed into a crouch, instead, banging her head against the top of her coffee table until her phone started ringing again.

It was the alarm this time.

Larissa cursed and grabbed her purse as she ran out the door. She was going to be late for work!

* * *

 

“Free time?”

“As part of your long rest, or in between encounters, you can find stuff to do with each other or in the town,” Larissa explained. “You might want to shop or learn a new spell or pray at your deity’s temple. You can gamble, drink, make connections around town...Pretty much anything you like.”

Larissa looked around the table as the players all shared glances with each other before turning to Larissa.

“Can I steal stuff?”

“Grall want beer and fight!”

“Can I flirt with Grall?”

“I need to restock my arrows.”

“Troy, you fucking nerd.”

“I’ve got, like, two left!”

Larissa groaned and dropped her face into her hands.

“I want to swap stories with someone who looks open to chatting and well-traveled,” Kent added, cautiously.

Larissa laughed into her hands.

* * *

 

**larduanarts**  Make it stop!!!

Attached: a screenshot of instagram on a phone with 99+ notifications.

 

**therealkentpurrson**

Attached: a selfie of Kent laughing.

 

**larduanarts**

Attached: a selfie of Larissa flipping him off.

 

**therealkentpurrson**

Attached: a picture of Purrs looking cute and fluffy and sated in the afternoon sun.

* * *

 

“Wait, so you’re telling me that was Kent Parson, Captain of the Las Vegas Aces and total hottie?” Eddy groaned as he crouched down behind the desk and gently banged his head against the cupboards below.

Larissa snickered, making eye contact and nodding at guests as they walked by.

“And you kept it a secret?”

“It’s not like we were being hush-hush about his name,” Larissa teased. “It’s not my fault you were already too drunk to realize.”

Eddy shot up in rebuttal and glared down at her. “I was only that drunk because you made me play as your partner for six games in a row, Larissa!” he argued in betrayal.

“You’re like, two of me,” she pointed out. “How can you not even drink half of what I can?”

A man walked up to Larissa’s desk with a briefcase, setting his ID and credit card on the counter, which she quickly snapped up.

“Welcome back to the MGM Grand and Las Vegas, Mr. Cooley, we have been expecting you,” Lardo greeted as she processed the check-in as quickly as she could.

Eddy rushed over to her once he’d finished his own phone call. “Isn’t he the one from last time that…?” he whispered, before trailing off and raising his eyebrows, not even wanting to say out loud the problems.

“Yep,” Larissa sighed, already exhausted.

Eddy watched where the guy had disappeared through the crowd and sighed, as well before clapping his hands and turning back to Larissa in excitement.

“So you said the two of you are still talking?” he asked, his eyes sparkling.

Larissa laughed and shoved him back over to his desk as their front office manager came into view. “We’ll talk on break,” she promised.

* * *

 

**therealkentpurrson**  you were a manager once. how do i stop a rookie from making these sorts of mistakes?

Attached: an image of Greaser passed out and suffering on the bathroom floor.

 

**larduanarts**  We were in college. We were all making those mistakes. Haven’t you been captain for, like, 8 years?

 

**therealkentpurrson**  k but whats ur excuse now

 

**larduanarts**  What did I do to you?

 

**therealkentpurrson** 9 yrs. also dont share that pic with anyone

 

**larduanarts**  Only if we can move this chat to WhatsApp.

 

**therealkentpurrson**  518-867-5309

**therealkentpurrson**  ...dont share that with anyone either

* * *

 

Kent snickered at his phone as Larissa ranted about wealthy middle-aged reward members and customer service and her desire to blacklist every platinum member in the system save three.

He clicked on the youtube link she sent and hit pause to let a video titled _Hotel Check-In, Diamond Member_ , load.

“So when are you going to introduce us?” Jeff asked with a grin between bites of his burger.

Kent paused, sipping at his soda as he looked over at Jeff and swallowed. “Huh?”

“You know?” Owen smirked as he leaned over the table. “The reason your phone hasn’t been out of your hand unless there’s a hockey stick already in it for the last week.”

“Tell us about your girl, Parser,” Jeff sang.

Blake softly began pounding his fists against the table as he chanted, “Tell us. Tell us. Tell us.” The rest of the boys joined in.

Kent shrugged, holding his hands out in innocence. “I’m just getting a lesson on how not to treat hotel staff from a friend,” he promised.

When the guys all seemed sufficiently confused, Kent chuckled and placed his phone in the middle of the table. He hit play on the video of two dogs running through an absurd check-in process that, save for the British accent, sounded like something Carly would say.

* * *

 

“You want the information broker to give you the information you want for free?”

“Yes,” Kent said, sincerely. “It’s a heavy burden. She should share it.”

“Is that what you tell her?” Larissa asked in disbelief.

Kent only smirked. “While fluttering my eyelashes at her, yes.”

Larissa sighed. “Roll a Persuasion check,” she said.

“I got a 16.”

Larissa stared down at the dice she’d rolled behind the screen in disbelief and blinked. She blinked again when the number hadn’t changed and, even after that second blink it read the same terrifying number.

She sighed at the critical fail and shrugged. “Sure. Why not.”

“Yes!” Kent shouted and punched the air in triumph, doing a quick celly in his chair. Larissa snorted.

* * *

 

“I just don’t get why you can’t come back here? Everyone misses you, you know,” Bitty said and Larissa sighed as she ruffled at her hair. It was getting long again, tickling her neck and shoulders. She’d need to cut it soon or she’d end up looking shaggy all the time.

“Moving’s not cheap, Bits,” she replied. “Besides, I think it’s good for me to have a bit of distance from everything.”

“But you hate your job,” Bitty argued. “And you aren’t even doing art anymore. That’s a total sin for you. You know we’re all happy to help. We want you to do what you love.”

Larissa clenched her fist and ground her jaw. “I can’t live off handouts forever,” she said, thinking through each word as carefully as she could before speaking. She’d had this fight with Shitty and Ransom already. She didn’t want to have it with Bitty, too. “I failed at making art my career. That’s okay. Yes, it sucks, but it’s not like making money off art is something most people can do. I just...need time to recenter and find something else. Distance helps.”

The phone was silent for a moment and Larissa wavered between wondering if the call had dropped or if Bitty had finally understood her.

“Well…” he said, and Larissa knew to take the tone as him giving up for now, even if he disagreed. “Well, you know we all love you and are here for you.”

“Thanks, Bits. I gotta go now.”

Larissa hung up to find a bunch of missed messages from Kent. The first one was of a bunch of dogs in a run. Lardo realized this must be for next season’s SPCA charity calendar. The next picture was of Owen Troy getting kicked in the chin by a lop, followed by Blake Gricius with three kittens climbing up his back and shoulders. Judging by the way his shoulders were hunched, they were digging claws into his skin. The final picture was a selfie of him with a pittie mix.

 

**Kent Parson** her name is lola

shes the best girl ever

i can afford a pet sitter and walker for her

 

**Larissa Duan** Purrs will get jealous

 

**Kent Parson** shit ur right

good thing im posing w her

shell get adopted right away

 

Larissa snorted, but smiled fondly as Kent sent her another picture of Lola on her back, getting belly rubs. It helped, pulling her back out of her head enough that she could breathe again. Closing her eyes, she did just that, taking in a long, deep breath and holding it until her lungs ached before slowly letting it out.

When she opened her eyes, she looked up at the red awning she had been hiding from the summer sun under, then let her gaze drift down and through the windows of the store she stood in front of, eyes lighting on yarn, fake flowers and a class schedule taped up for all to see at the entrance.

An echo of guilt stabbed her as she thought of what she’d said to Bitty on the call just now, but this was personal and about her. She wasn’t ready to let others back into it yet. And that was okay.

The automatic doors slid open as a mom and two kids pushed a cart filled with craft supplies out into the parking lot, bringing a blast of arctic air conditioning swirling several feet into the August heat with them. It was as revitalizing as it was shocking, sending stripes of gooseflesh up her arms and legs.

The doors were just starting to close as Larissa stepped inside.

* * *

 

**Larissa Duan**

Attached: a picture of ducks in the Bellagio fountains

 

**Kent Parson**

Attached: a picture of Purrs playing with a toy mouse

 

**Larissa Duan**  F O U R

Attached: a picture of a person walking four dogs

 

**Kent Parson**

Attached: a picture of Purrs sleeping on a shelf

 

**Larissa Duan**

Attached: a stock picture of a baby goat

 

**Kent Parson** u need a pet

Attached: a picture of Purrs with a lizard in his mouth

 

**Larissa Duan**

Attached: a stock picture of a goldfish

* * *

 

“I can’t believe you dragged me here this early in the morning to stare at a cute boy,” Larissa groused the next morning as she buried herself as deep as possible into her oldest, largest and most comfortable hoodie.

“I picked you up and brought you coffee,” Eddy replied. “And he’s hot, not just cute.”

“Oh, yes,” Larissa said with a solemn nod. “That makes all the difference.” She rolled her eyes. “You know you could have just come here by yourself, right?”

They were pressed in tight together, surrounded by fans as the Aces held open practice for pre-season. No one had ever been able to quite explain why Vegas took to their hockey team as well as they had, but there was no denying that the moment rookie camp had started back up, the practice rink had found itself full.

Rookie camp was over, though, and the whole team was out in full-force, groups practicing at different times as everyone fought for their chance at the roster. Kent Parson was in A group, which was about to take to the ice with C group. Larissa wasn’t sure if he’d be playing any games yet, so she’d told Eddy if he wanted to spy on his crush, he’d do best going to watch their free practice.

She just hadn’t expected him to drag her along with.

The crowd roared as the Aces took to the ice. Fans banged on the glass and held up signs in attempts to grab their favorite player’s attention as they waved and skated around the rink.

“Did you tell him you were here?” Eddy asked as he zeroed in on the shortest skater on the ice.

“Of course I didn’t,” Larissa said. “He’s not going to stop practice for a chat.”

“Kent! Kent! Kent!” the crowd shouted as he skated past. Larissa turned to watch him skate by, nodding casually at the crowd until he passed where she and Eddy were sitting—or, where she was sitting and Eddy was standing—on the glass. Because Eddy had woken her up at 5am on her one day off this week to be one of the first people in line.

Kent’s eyes widened suddenly and Larissa realized he’d recognized her. He took a sharp turn to skate back towards her and ran into two of his teammates. Larissa laughed and pointed at him as he skated back up to her with an embarrassed grin. He pointed right back at her and waved before Troy slammed into him and dragged him away.

Larissa watched them skate off before noticing Eddy staring at her.

“Not gonna stop, huh?” he asked with a smirk.

“I didn’t hear any chatting,” Larissa argued as she quickly turned her attention back to the ice, trying to ignore how hot her face suddenly felt.

* * *

 

**Kent Parson**  u came!!!

 

**Larissa Duan**  Friend’s a fan

 

**Kent Parson**  not u?

 

**Larissa Duan**  I’m from Boston

 

**Kent Parson** ???no one actually likes the bruins

next time stay after

ill sign a shirt for ur friend

 

**Larissa Duan**  Please don’t

I’ll never hear the end of it

 

**Kent Parson**  i can sign one for u 2

 

**Larissa Duan**  How much you think I can sell it for?

 

**Kent Parson** D= D= D= D=

* * *

“What are your expectations for the coming season?”

Kent frowned in consideration at the vague question. Those were always the worst, because he knew exactly what the reporters used them for. The fishing questions. The ones that let them know what concerns were on the players’ minds. The scent for blood.

“I’m pretty sure, going into the season, every team has the same expectations: to come out on top,” he finally said.

“So you’re aiming for the Cup this season?” another reporter asked, shoving his phone closer in. “It’s been a few years since Vegas has seen it. What do you think the team needs to do to make it happen?”

“We’ve had some unlucky breaks,” Kent agreed with a solemn nod. “But our roster’s firmed up for the year, we’ve got some great new talent, our pre-season’s been one of the best in the league, and we start off the season with a long homestretch.”

“Your team’s had some trouble facing the Falconers, even at home,” a third reporter began, pushing in as close as she could through the men hogging the majority of the space. “You’re facing them early this season. Do you think that a loss there would risk messing with your early-season momentum?”

Kent smirked because he knew the media and fans ate it up and the last thing he wanted to do was show the Jack Zimmermann-sized wound he bore to the media. It had taken them almost an entire season to finally stop asking him for his thoughts on everything Zimmermann or his boyfriend did or had happen to them. “The Aces are a different team this year and so are the Falcs,” he pressed. “Besides, everyone knows the house always wins in Vegas.”

* * *

 

**Larissa Duan**  Good luck!

Attached: a picture of a tv screen at a bar, the NHL logo blazoned across it.

 

**Kent Parson**  ill get you tickets next time

Attached: a selfie of Kent, sweat-damp, red-faced, but smiling in victory.

 

**Larissa Duan**  I only accept glass seats.

* * *

 

Larissa picked up after five app notifications when whoever was trying to get her attention finally called, using her pinky to swipe to answer and then gingerly holding the phone to her ear by her shoulder as she went back to wiping paint off her hands with her rag.

“Hello?”

“Larissa! Great!”

She blinked. “Parson?”

“So, hey…” Kent continued, as if there was no confusion as to why he’d randomly call her up. “Since you’re an artist…”

Larissa balked. “I’m not really an artist,” she pressed, wincing as she spared a glance at the easel she’d put together from some salvaged PVC pipe and the canvas she had resting on it.

Once again, Kent barely seemed to pay attention to her. “I was wondering if I could send you something.”

Larissa rolled her eyes. “I’m definitely not an appraiser,” she said.

“Lazer’s daughter got teased in school today about her project,” Kent explained. “I figured hearing something from a real artist about her work would help.”

“Send me a pic.” She didn’t even think about arguing again.

“You’re the best,” Kent replied with smug gratitude. She could practically see the smirk on his face. She could definitely hear it. It meant she’d played right into his plans, too.

“Okay,” she said, trying to ignore that fact because there was no way she was not going to do something to help a little girl being bullied over her art. “But who the fuck tells a kid their art is bad?”

“Other kids, I guess.”

Larissa sneered. “Fuckers.”

“Also, before I put you on speaker or anything,” Kent warned, “there is a swear jar in this household and it is enforced.”

Larissa blinked and then scowled. “I’m not gonna swear in front of kids.”

“Oh, well…Good.”

“How much have you paid in?” Larissa poked at the obvious question his reply had begged. His voice had gone tinny, too. He must have put her on speaker.

No more cursing, then.

“Pretty sure I’ve bankrolled the oldest’s college education,” he replied. “I wasn’t allowed to babysit for a pretty long time.”

“But you are now,” Larissa pointed out.

“Yeah. Kinda miss being banned.” Larissa heard the lie in his soft voice.

“Okay,” Kent said decidedly after a few seconds. “Picture sent.”

Larissa turned her phone to speaker, as well, and checked her notifications just in time to see the WhatsApp bubble appear. “And received,” she said as she tapped it open to find a slightly blurry picture of a watercolor piece. “How old is she?” she asked in surprise at the technical skill displayed. Painting with watercolor was very different from acrylics or oils. Most kids didn’t get that, which was why you’d get unwanted feathering and blurring and blending of non complementary colors. But there was none of that here.

“Seven,” Kent replied, proud as if he was talking about his own kid.

“Dude,” Larissa said, attempting to zoom in on the picture as much as possible. “She’s amazing!” She bit back the snide comment that came to mind about Kent’s photography skills so they didn’t get sidetracked into another chirp war.

“I kept telling her that!” Kent cried out in frustration. “But apparently _daddy’s friend_ might be _lying_.”

“I mean, I’d trust you as far as I could throw you,” Larissa said, unable to let that chirp go unsaid. “And I’m 5’1”.”

“That is unkind.”

Larissa smirked at the sound of a child’s laughter on the other end of the line.

“She there?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Hello?” Larissa called out to the child she’d heard laughing.

A shy, young voice replied. “Hi.”

“What’s your name?” Larissa asked, modulating her voice to be softer and more welcoming.

It took a few seconds and Larissa heard some shuffling on the other end of the line, but eventually the little girl responded: “Mall’ry.”

“Mallory?” Larissa asked. “That’s a mouthful, isn’t it? You tell your dad he’s mean for giving you that name?”

Mallory giggled.

“Well, Mallory, I’m Larissa,” she continued. “My name’s pretty long, too, isn’t it?”

“Kent says you’re an artist,” Mallory said instead of replying to Larissa’s question.

“I used to study art in college,” Larissa replied. It was an obvious side-step to her, but she doubted anyone else would know. “And you know what?” she asked next, to keep the conversation flowing.

“What?”

Larissa smiled softly at the completely oblivious tone of a child who honestly did not know where the conversation was headed. “Your picture is really pretty!” she said.

“Really?”

The excitement in the little girl’s voice tugged even more at Larissa’s smile. “Yes,” she confirmed. “You picked such pretty colors.” Larissa downloaded the picture to her own phone and then pulled it up from her album, zooming in on the details and wishing she could see it in person. It was still a child’s level of art, but it was also childlike in its directness. “You must have been very happy when you colored this.”

Larissa heard Kent’s huffed laugh and some background noise on the other end of the line before Mallory’s shyness returned. “Yeah.” At least it hadn’t lost its pleased bent.

“I can see that with all the yellow you used,” Lardo explained as her eyes caught on the goldenrod and daffodil hues taking over a large portion of the bottom left corner. “Did you want the people who looked at the picture to be happy, too?”

“Yeah!”

“Well, looking at it makes me very happy,” Larissa confirmed as her attention shifted to another part of the painting. “And these swirls of light blue and pink on the right are very soft,” she added. “Like a hug.”

“It’s how I feel with my mommy and daddy,” Mallory said, her voice getting higher in pitch and volume. They were only connected by a phone connection, but Lardo could feel the excitement crackling from her.

“You must love them so much,” she said, her heart aching at the distance she’d put between her parents and herself.

“Yeah,” Mallory agreed. Larissa and closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and promised to call her parents tomorrow.

“Did you show it to your mommy and daddy?” she then asked.

“No,” Mallory admitted. “Cuz...cuz they said it was bad.”

Larissa frowned. “Who said it was bad?”

“Chris and Tomi. Cuz it didn’t have anything in it. They said it was scribbles like a baby.”

“Mallory.” Larissa sighed and tried to think of the best way to cheer her up. “Art is amazing because you made it. And it doesn’t have to have specific shapes or people or things in it to make it art. You made this to show how much you loved your mom and dad and that simple act of creation makes this art and makes you an artist. You did a really good job.” She paused for a moment, staring in consideration at her own piece, then added, “And also Chris and Tomi need to learn about abstract art. Ok?”

“Okay.” Larissa could hear the smile in Mallory’s voice again.

“Are you gonna show the picture to mommy and daddy now?”

“Yeah.”

Larissa smiled at the decisiveness of it. “They’re gonna love it so much.”

She heard a clatter on the other end of the line, then a much deeper voice saying, “Thank you.”

Larissa blinked at the sudden change in speaker. She’d forgotten Kent was listening in by the end of her conversation with Mallory. “You took the phone back?” she asked, turning off the speakerphone and bringing the phone back up to her ear.

“She ran off,” Kent said. “I think you embarrassed her. But, really, thanks.”

“She’s a cute kid and she’s got talent,” Larissa said as she shrugged, brushing off the gratitude and the way his voice got deeper and more personal with it along with the way it made something squirm in her gut and heat her face.

“I’ll take that as a ringing endorsement, coming from you.”

Larissa rolled her eyes at Kent’s laugh. “Alright. If that’s done, I gotta go,” she said, her eyes slipping back to her own unfinished canvas. “I was in the middle of something.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Kent stumbled over the conversation hitting its end. “I, uh...gotta get these girls ready for bed soon, anyway. ‘Night.”

Larissa grinned. “Night, Parson.”

“You can call me Kent, you know.”

Larissa’s grin grew. “Night, Kent.”

Larissa hung up the call and set her phone back down on the table. She suddenly realized her cheeks hurt from smiling and she worked her jaw to loosen the muscles there before turning back to the canvas in front of her. It was covered in greens and blues and red for the moment, but, with a small smile and Mallory’s picture in her mind, she picked up a fresh brush and squeezed some yellow out onto her palette.

* * *

 

“Alright! How do you kill him, Hitcho?”

Blake blinked in surprise. “YESSSS!”

“Nice!” Eddy cheered in relief as his shoulders began to sag. He’d survived with three hit points.

“Alright, so while the necromancer is preoccupied with Grall and Purrs, I use my scimitar to hack into the guy’s side, finding a niche in his hide armor. Thanks to the Shadowfell curse on the blade, it slides through his gut like butter, cleaving him in two.”

“Bro!” Kent cheered the descriptive scene.

“I then bathe in the blood that spurts out of his torso as it falls right next to me and summon his spirit out of his corpse to become my servant.”

Owen winced. “...Bro.”

Larissa smirked. “And with the death of the necromancer and his minions, you have gained 1867 experience points each.”

“Wait!” Siobhan shouted as she quickly calculated her new total. “We leveled up!”

The table cheered and Kent and Owen even stood up to celly.

“Or at least you will after your next long rest,” Larissa pointed out. “Was there anything else you wanted to do before then?”

The group stared at the map in front of them in thought. “We’ve cleared out the ziggurat, so let’s just find a defensible location and stay the night here,” Owen suggested with a shrug. “We’re pretty wounded, anyway.”

Blake nodded. “I’ll set up alarm and take first watch. I’ll use that time to identify all the magic items we found, too.”

“I’ll take second watch,” Kent offered.

“I’ll finish the night after my trance, then,” Eddy offered and smiled deviously. “And make breakfast in the morning.”

“DON’T YOU TOUCH OUR FOOD SUPPLIES EVER AGAIN!” the group shouted and Larissa laughed.

“Alright. The three of you, I’ll need you to roll perception checks for me,” she said as she held a stack of cards out to Blake. “And here’s the info for the items you identify.”

“21.”

“16.”

Kent hissed and winced. “...Um...4?”

Larissa smirked at him and rolled three dice behind her screen. “You all pass your shifts without noticing anything of much interest. The Alarm spell isn’t set off, either.”

Kent sighed in relief.

“Since this ends our current storyline, I figured we could break here and spend the rest of the night leveling up.”

* * *

 

**Larissa Duan**  !

 

**Kent Parson**  you said glass seats only

 

**Larissa Duan**  !!

Attached: a picture of a hockey rink from directly behind the glass in the corner of the double attack zone, the Las Vegas Aces’ Spade showing on the jumbotron screen.

 

**Kent Parson**  stick around after the game.

 

**Larissa Duan**  ?

 

**Larissa Duan**  ??

 

**Larissa Duan**???

* * *

 

The thing about being captain was that Kent set the direction for the team.

He hadn’t fully understood that so much when he had first been given the C. Sure, he’d had a year with the A down in the Q and watched Jack sweat over the letter on his sweater. But Jack had sweat about everything then and, to Kent, hockey had just been hockey.

Then Kent had lost Jack and been separated from every single person he’d ever known. He’d been thrust into a party city he’d been too young to participate in but rich and famous enough nobody cared. He’d had the skill to be picked first and the weight of that skill placed on his shoulders by a floundering team. He’d had nothing but hockey then, with everything to prove and everything to lose. So he’d done everything he had to bring them the cup.

They loved him so much for it, they gave him the C.

It was the hockey fairy tale.

Only the story hadn’t ended there. Kent wouldn’t let it after Jack chased him off with harsh looks and harsher words about the letter sports news was singing harmony about. That couldn’t be Kent’s happy ending.

So Kent learned what it meant to be captain. He learned what it meant to lead the team despite being the youngest player on the roster. He used the C to direct his team to victory. He used the C to push for stronger D and deeper lines and a second cup. He used the C to instill the will to fight in every single teammate even when the scoreboard read hopeless and if that fight just so happened to require knowing when the refs were and weren’t looking your way, then he made sure his team knew how to pay attention to that, as well.

He used the C to make his team as appealing as he could for his best friend—because a cup with Jack would be a damn good happy ending—up until he finally realized he and Jack weren’t writing the same story anymore.

Kent hadn’t been sure where he was going after that. Without that happy ending to shoot for, he was left on an unending sheet of ice, skating and skating and never knowing what for. Sure he passed milestones and garnered trophies each year at the NHL Awards, but what the fuck did it all mean? What was it for?

Jack seemed to know. He played hockey with a drive only he could put forward but Kent didn’t see the uncertainty he’d had in the Q anymore.

So the first time Kent played Jack, the first time the Aces faced off against the Falconers after that acquisition, Kent tried to see what Jack saw.

They won, even if people still debated the legitimacy of that goal in the comments section of a Youtube compilation video titled _Kent Parson Is A Rat And Here’s Why…_

The only pride Kent had felt in that victory was the fact that Jack had finally paid attention to him. That Kent had managed to distract him from whatever goal he had. That, for those few minutes, Jack had been just as lost as he was.

Kent forgot about the letter on his sweater.

When the Falconers visited Vegas a couple months later, the entire team was out for blue and yellow blood.

* * *

 

Larissa wouldn’t be able to explain why everyone got into such a huff about Falconers vs Aces games and calling the two teams rivals. Yes, they had players who had played together in juniors, but, honestly, what team didn’t?

She had watched a few games with Bitty before and maybe understood. The games had been chippy, to say the least, with a fair few brawls. One time, she was pretty sure both teams went an entire period without ever being at full-strength for more than a minute.

This game was different.

She sat up against the glass in a coveted double-attack corner with her signed Aces shirt—because Parson hadn’t let her say no once he found out she didn’t have any Aces gear to wear—and her Falcs cap and felt player after player slam into the glass in front of her and shake her chair.

Gricius knocked the puck behind the Falcs net and Larissa watched a ref jump out of its way and then press himself as close to the wall as possible to escape being trampled by the four players chasing after it.

Mashkov slammed Troy out of the way then trapped the puck up against the wall as the rest of the players took their places around the Falcs’ territory, ready to defend or attack once the puck was wrestled out from the mass of hockey muscle and skate blade fighting for it. Jack skated up behind Tater and shoved his stick into the fray only for Scapelli to shoulder him out of the way and up into the glass right in front of Larissa.

Her eyes went wide as she suddenly realized Jack might actually notice her.

But Parse stole the puck and sent it rocketing over to Gricius and the crowd roared at the ensuing scrabble in front of the net until Snowy was finally able to swallow the puck.

Seven seconds later, Troy won the face-off, sent Parse the puck and the vulcanized rubber hit net.

Larissa smiled as she the team cellied around Parse to the dulcet tones of Katy Perry and the goal siren. She didn’t even realize she’d been noticed until a loud knock on the glass, just to her left scared her out of her attention.

Her smile immediately fell into trepidation as she looked over to see Jack watching her with a surprised smile. She nodded but let her eyes shift away as she shrunk in on herself a bit.

Jack’s reflection in the plexiglass was distorted. His eyes looked far sadder when he skated away.

It took the rest of the period and half of the next before Larissa could send him a text.

He didn’t reply until the game had ended, of course.

* * *

 

**Lardo**   can we talk?

 

**Jack**  We fly out tonight. Meet me out back. I’ve got a few minutes.

* * *

 

**Kent Parson**  join us for a victory drink!

 

**Larissa Duan**  I have to do something. Maybe next time?

 

**Kent Parson**  im holding u to it

* * *

 

“Are we meeting here there or taking her with?”

Kent hummed as he looked up from his phone, not quite paying attention to what Bones had said.

“Your girl,” Greaser pressed. “She was at the game, wasn’t she?”

“How many times do I have to tell ya?” Kent said with a laugh, but he didn’t press it. The guys thought what they thought, but Kent knew he wasn’t that lucky. It had been pretty stupid of him to invite her to a game against the Falcs, which her friend played on, and not expect her to have plans with him after. The guy was only in town at most twice a year without a cup run.

“She’s got plans,” he said, instead, and slipped his phone into his back pocket.

“So she really isn’t your girl, then,” Troy said as he walked up behind him and threw an arm over his shoulder. “Poor Parser. Drinks on us.”

Kent opened his mouth to argue against the pity, but shook his head, instead. “Nah. We kicked ass tonight. First round and dinner on me.”

“I won’t say no to that,” Scrappy says as he walks up behind Kent and bumps his shoulder hard against Troy to dislodge him.

“Go have your fun like rookies,” Jeff shouted after them.

Kent threw him the bird and a laugh. “Go home to your wife and kids, old man!” he said in reply.

The bar they hung out at regularly was just far enough away to likely not have too many of the crowd from the game, but also kept their full kitchen open late enough to have a real meal rather than just fried bar food to recover drained reserves.

Kent walked in and smiled at the dark stained wood and the screens over the bar showing Monday Night Football talk. Because Kelley’s might be a sports bar, but it was a football kind of sports bar in the fall and a baseball kind of sports bar in the spring.

“Usual spots open if you like,” Terry said with a jerk of her head as Kent walked up to the bar. He handed her his card. “I promised the boys. Tonight’s on me. Don’t let ‘em pay.”

She grinned and swiped it from him. “I’ll start your tab, then. Beers’ll be out in five.”

It took about that long for the other four to make it in and they raised their glasses—Greaser with a cola—the moment Brett left with their orders.

“To one hell of a game tonight!” Scrappy said before they all took their first drink.

And it had been just that. Kent smiled and drank his beer, listening and nodding as Troy and Greaser began raving about Greaser’s shorthanded goal in the second. The kid deserved it. He’d played damn well.

They all had. Kent wasn’t really sure where it had come from. Games against the Falconers always got chippy—or at least they had since Jack had signed—but tonight’s game had been positively polite in comparison.

Tater hadn’t even cursed him out in Russian _or_ English.

The guys had been making connections like nobody’s business and their speed and aggressive forecheck had dominated the game.

And Kent?

Kent hadn’t had fun playing against the Falcs since before the rumor mill picked up they were courting Jack.

He’d had fun with his boys tonight, though.

He couldn’t say he’d barely noticed Jack, of course. Jack was too good to barely notice. Jack was a threat to any team he faced. Always had been.

But Kent could say he’d been able to see past Jack. He’d been a player to be wary of, a body to always know the location of in relation to himself and the puck, but no more so than Ovi or Crosby or McDavid.

Kent hadn’t felt that free since he had first started the Q and Jack had been nothing more than a teammate he’d be competing for a spot against.

So Kent had wrangled 2 of the night’s 5 goals and 2 assists and shut the mouth of every reporter who’d dared to say they would flounder against the Falcs.

He felt light, too. So many times, even with a victory under his belt, Kent left Providence or T-Mobile feeling more lost than before, the burden of his past and his vanishing future weighing like heavy bricks on his already exhausted shoulders.

But now?

Kent cheered with the rest of the boys as their food arrived: burgers and steak sandwiches and salads meant to be entire meals, not sides. The only thing that could make this evening better would be if Larissa had joined.

But even then, he knew he’d speak with her again soon.

* * *

 

Larissa leaned against the concrete wall and stared at her feet. The worst of the crowd had long since rushed out in a mass attempt to beat the traffic after the game ended 5-2 in Vegas’s favor. Even the worst of the traffic had faded, in fact, with only a few straggler cars visible in the parking lot that could have easily belonged to staff for all she knew.

The door she was waiting at squeaked open on stressed hinges and Larissa jumped to see who had opened them.

Large arms wrapped around her and pulled her in and they were familiar enough that she returned the affection.

“It’s good to see you,” Jack said when he pulled back. Even with his smile, his eyes looked unsure and sad as he admitted, “I wasn’t sure I’d get the chance with how long it’s been since we talked.”

“I’m sorry…” Larissa said.

Jack shook his head. “Everyone misses you, Lardo, but you do what you need to do.”

A large sigh of relief racked her body and mind. Jack got it. Someone actually got it.

“I’m sorry we didn’t see the stress you were under,” he continued.

And Larissa shook her head. “I wasn’t honest with any of you,” she argued, finally feeling like she could be. “I should’ve told you things were getting rough with Shitty. I should’ve told you things were getting rough with art.”

“It would’ve been nice to know what we could do that would actually help you,” Jack agreed, “But our actions put you in the place where you felt like you couldn’t. I get that. I really get that. You look like you’re doing better?”

Larissa looked up at Jack in surprise at his easy acceptance. She had always gotten along with him well. She knew he would go to hell and back for his friends, but also knew he was also happy to just sit there and listen to their troubles when they just needed to vent. Somehow, in all her panicking and moving and resettling and rediscovering herself, she’d forgotten one of her best friends.

She smiled at him. “Yeah,” she promised, “I am.”

Jack smiled right back at her. “That’s great.”

He didn’t ask for more. No details, no truth, no tears. He didn’t ask her if she was sure. He just took her words for what they were and what she meant them to be.

“Zimmboni!”

Jack and Larissa looked over to see Tater waving at him from the bus.

“I tell B you cheat. Then I take him and all the pie!”

Larissa snorted even as it reminded her of someone else she’d need to apologize to soon. “How’s Bitty?” she asked.

Jack waved his hand at Tater and studied her for a moment. “He misses his friend,” he finally said.

She smiled and nodded at his reply and the volume those four words said.

“Tell him I’m painting again,” she said. “Just as a hobby.”

Jack’s smile grew as he pulled her into another bone crushing hug.

Larissa returned the favor, squeezing as hard as she could. “It was good to see you, Jack.”

“Yeah,” he agreed as he pulled away. “I’ll talk to you soon?”

“Very,” Larissa replied with a smile.

“Zimmboni! Snowy’s stomach is eating itself! We are hungry!”

They laughed again.

“I gotta go,” Jack said and Larissa nodded her understanding.

“Don’t tell Shitty,” she said once Jack turned around, hiding her face and the guilt she felt at asking him to keep this secret from him.

“I’ll let you talk to him,” Jack said without looking back, knowing exactly what she was trying to ask.

Larissa watched him board the bus, all the way until he disappeared behind the tinted windows. She never should’ve doubted him.

* * *

 

**Larissa Duan**  That offer for a drink still open?

 

**Kent Parson**

attached: Maps link to Kelley’s

* * *

 

“Parser!” Troy shouted in absolute glee as Kent came back from the toilet. “You didn’t tell me she was a nerd!”

Kent blinked. “She went to college.” He shrugged. “Isn’t it a given?”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re sort of an asshole?” Larissa asked from where she was comfortably tucked between Greaser and Scraps, chowing down on an entire order of tater tots all by herself.

She was fucking great.

“On the regular,” he replied as he grabbed his beer back from Greaser and went to down it.

“He backwashed,” Larissa said the moment the drink touched his lips and Kent spat out what little he’d drank as Greaser and Bones began cracking up.

“Fuck you, man,” Kent cursed and handed the glass back to Greaser before smacking him on the side of his head.

“You don’t deserve your Lady Byng,” Greaser said as he held his head and continued laughing.

“I’ll fucking fight you for it,” Kent shot back as he raised his hand to ask for another drink.

“But, really, you play D&D?” Troy asked as he turned back to Larissa.

“Well, not since I moved out here,” she replied with a shrug of one shoulder. “But, yeah. It’s fun.”

“Is that some new video game?” Kent asked as he got his new beer and poured a packet of Sweet n Low in the glass Greaser was holding onto while he wasn’t looking.

“Parser…”

“Dude…”

Kent honestly didn’t know what to make of the twin looks of disgust Larissa and Troy sent him.

Troy slammed his hand on the table. “Alright. That settles it. We’re playing.”

“Wait. What?” Kent asked.

“Someone’s gotta right this wrong,” Troy explained.

“We’re hosting it at one of your places,” Larissa cut in. “I don’t have room.”

“Parser’s got plenty,” Troy offered as if Kent wasn’t right there and still trying to keep up with the conversation.

“What about a DM?”

Troy winced and scratched at his face. “Well, it’s been a few years for me…”

Larissa rolled her eyes. “You’ll do one-shots when I need breaks, then.”

Troy accepted with a nod. “Do you need any books? I’ll get any supplies needed.”

“I’ll give you a list,” Larissa agreed as she pulled out her phone. “What’s your number? Do you have Whats App?”

“Can I play?”

Larissa and Troy looked up from their phones, struck silent by the simple question from Greaser. They looked at each other and seemed to consider it a moment before Troy nodded.

“The more the merrier,” he said.

Larissa looked past Troy at Scrappy and Bones and added, “We’ll need at least one more person.”

“Not me,” Scrappy shook his head. “I tried once in Junior High. Not my thing.”

“Haven’t tried,” Bones said. “Don’t wanna.”

“I know a few people who might be able to join,” Larissa continued as she turned back to Troy. “They’re cool. You want to find one or two more? Five’s a good number.”

“Deal. My sister would love to get out of her house every so often. She’ll probably agree.”

Siobhan was the mother of 3 rambunctious boys and often claimed her husband was like having a fourth. Kent imagined she took any chance she could get for a break, even if it meant hanging out with hockey players no more mature than her kids. But that still didn’t help solve his problem here.

“What are you even talking about?” he asked in frustration.

“We’ll be at your place this Thursday for character building,” Troy said, instead of giving him an answer. “Plan to feed about six.”

Kent huffed. “I don’t get a say in this?”

Troy tilted his head to the side. “When have you ever?”

Kent crossed his arms over his chest and muttered, “And they call me the asshole.”

* * *

 

**Holster**  GUYSGUYSGUYS

Attached: link to an article titled _Jack Zimmermann’s Vegas Hook-Up_.

 

**Ransom**  IS THAT A PICTURE OF LARDO???

 

**Dex**  Holy fuck.

 

**Holster** JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK

 

**Nursey**  does bitty know?

 

**Ransom**  BROOOOO. HOW WAS LARDS?????

**Ransom**  AND HOW DOES SHE HAVE FRONT ROW SEATS?????

 

**Chowder**  Is Lardo wearing a Parson jersey?

 

**Holster**  SDLKFJLWKEJKLSD

**Holster**  LARDOOOOOOOO

 

**Lardo**  Guys. It’s chill.

 

**Holster**  SLKDJFWIEFLKSD

 

**Ransom**  LARDOOOOOOOOOO

 

**Dex** O.O

 

**Chowder**  Lardo!!! Nice jersey!

 

**Bitty** :sob: :sob: :sob:

 

**Jack**  Welcome back :-)

* * *

 

“Wait, so he got you front row seats to a game and then introduced you to his teammates and you still aren’t banging?”

Larissa hid her face in her hands and laughed at the blatant confusion on Eddy’s face.

“It’s not like that,” she explained as she pulled her face back out of her hands. “We’re friends. Boys and girls can actually be friends, you know? Anyway, that wasn’t even the reason why I told you about it.”

Eddy gasped, clutching invisible pearls. “You mean you wouldn’t have told me?”

Larissa rolled her eyes. “We’re getting a D&D group together and I wanted to invite you to join,” she pressed on, ignoring his overreaction. “If,” she specified, “ _If_ you can do it without fangirling.”

“You mean Dungeons and Dragons?” he asked, his face scrunched up in confused disgust. “That super nerdy game where you roll dice and pretend to be an inhuman character with magic powers?”

Larissa sighed, already knowing where this was going. “Yeah.”

“Where we sit around tables drinking alcohol and energy drinks and eating fatty finger foods and flirt with any character we want and kill the rest?”

“Yes.”

“And I’d get to do that with super hot professional athletes and my best friend?”

Larissa blinked. “Yes?”

“Sign me up!”

* * *

 

**Shitty**  Lards?

 

**Lardo**  Yeah?

 

**Shitty**  I’m sorry.

 

**Lardo**  Me, too

* * *

 

“Why’d you bring me here?”

Kent looked out the windshield at the nondescript building in the Green Valley neighborhood. A number of other vehicles filled the parking lot and the double doors were held open to welcome anyone in. In front of them sat a sandwich board that read _Childrens Hospital of Nevada Silent Art Auction_.

“I wanted a plus-one that could talk about the stuff,” he spoke carefully, knowing the night risked being a ticking bomb. “It’s a charity, so I gotta buy something.”

Larissa glared at him and Kent realized he’d already lit the fuse. “I quit being an artist, Parson,” she snapped. “Hire a buyer if you want recommendations.”

“But aren’t you doing art again?” he asked, as flat as the most boring of hockey interviews, testing each step he took for landmines by poking it with a stick.

Larissa didn’t respond, but the arms crossed over her chest told Kent plenty.

“You told Mallory that doing art made you an artist,” he pressed a bit harder.

Her eyes flashed.

Boom.

“Because she was a little girl who needed cheering up!” she shouted. “Because she had talent and if me telling her that helped her continue doing something she clearly enjoyed, then of course I was going to!”

“Then what about you?” he asked.

Larissa jerked back in surprise. “What?”

“I mean, obviously you’re not a little girl, but…”

Her eyes narrowed. “But I need cheering up like one?”

“No!” Kent said, waving his hands in front of him in rebuttal, eyes wide, knowing exactly what trigger he had unearthed. But then he thought. “Yes,” he said with a wince before quickly explaining himself. “I mean, who doesn’t sometimes? It’s okay to need or want kindness.”

He huffed and placed his hands on the wheel, fingers tapping at the braiding along the outer edge as he admitted, “It took me a shit-long time to learn that.”

“Look,” he pressed when Larissa seemed a bit more willing to listen for the moment. “We don’t have to go in. We can leave right now. But, inside there are pieces by a dozen local artists. Many of them are here to make connections and see what the buyers do and don’t like. Sure it’s a charity auction, not some fancy art show with critics and professionals every three feet, but...you kick ass at art.” Kent looked at Larissa. “Even now, I see the pieces you’re making in your apartment. If you started making those connections, you could do something with it.”

“You act like it’s that easy,” she argued. “Like if I just put in the effort, talk to a few people, everything will come out perfect. Like I didn’t do all that and more in Boston and waste two years of my life on it! Like every time my rich boyfriend introduced me to someone else in need of a portrait or a piece to decorate their office or a fairy tale or woodland wall mural in their nursery I didn’t suck it up and ignore every part of my own art for the commission piece. Like I didn’t pretend not to recognize the way they talked down to me or treated me or how fucking dependent I was on each and every one of those connections only for it to lead to nothing.”

She swiped angrily at her eyes. Kent held out a travel pack of Kleenex and she tore a few out and began to blot at her face and take deep breaths in an attempt to calm down.

“Well that’s your problem,” Kent said.

“What?” she hissed, glaring back at him.

“Shitty’s old money, isn’t he?” he explained. “I can’t imagine any connections he has through that are the kind that are gonna want bejewelled jock straps.”

“You don’t think I know that?” she sneered. “I applied for galleries. I did the street stuff. There were four of us who went in together to rent the space for a show. I did the work!”

“I think you kicked ass and took names but there was only so much you could do with the wrong connections,” Kent said. “A bit part of being a professional athlete is being an entrepreneur. We run our own business—ourselves and our names—and we hire the right people to help us sell our brand. But we don’t just hire anyone. We learn the names of the good financial reps and agents in juniors. Our teams have people on payroll who have worked in their respective industries and communities for years to get us what we need if our agents don’t have those connections themselves. And I’m telling you: inside is the right kind of connection. The kind that knows what audience you need and how to reach it.”

He sighed and leaned back into the drivers’ seat. “Just go inside and look at what’s up for auction,” he said. “Talk to the artists. Even if you don’t want to sell again, even if it stays a hobby, I don’t think you’ll regret it. And, if you decide you ever want to try again, you have a place to start. That’s it. Just go make friends. Talk about something you love doing with them.”

He watched Larissa open her mouth to rebut and pressed on. “And don’t say you don’t love art because you have six different pieces in your living room right now and they are not the same pieces I saw last month.”

Larissa closed her mouth and turned to look out the passenger side window.

“Just have fun,” he asked. “That’s all tonight’s for. And whenever you want to leave, let me know. I’ll say my goodbyes, bid a stupidly large amount on whatever piece you tell me to, and I’ll drive you home. And if it was that bad, you can kick my shin and tell me you never want to see me again and sell the signed jersey on ebay and I won’t say a single thing about any of it.”

He took a deep breath in through his nose and held it as he waited for Larissa’s reply. His fingers were wrapped tight around the leather of the steering wheel and he squeezed as he began to run out of air.

“Okay.”

Kent let the entirety of his lunch capacity out with one punched sigh. “Yeah?”

Larissa still looked pretty ticked off, but she sighed and opened her car door. “Yeah.”

Kent hopped out his own door and walked around to meet her on the other side. “How ugly of a piece are you going to make me bid on?” he asked to lighten the mood.

“Oh, you’re paying ten times the highest bid on the ugliest piece I can find,” she confirmed.

Kent nodded. “Heard.”

* * *

 

Larissa tucked another business card into her purse next to the five she’d already gathered. “Thanks,” she said. “Sorry I don’t currently have any of my own.”

“It’s fine,” Verna waved her off as she tucked one of her own cards with Larissa’s contact information on the back into her wallet. “I only just started carrying mine around at Stephanie’s recommendation. I don’t know if it’s helped much with my business, but it makes me feel more professional, you know? Like, they were free, pretty much, but you gotta be at least worth a bit of money to have your name on a scrap of cardstock like this, right?”

Larissa snorted.

“Anyway, your insta is pretty awesome,” she continued. “I really think you’d want to meet Petyr. He does a lot of that 3D found art stuff. I’ll send you his web address, so check it out. He’s got a spot as a rotating guest artist in the Wonderland Gallery next month, too.”

“Will do. And good luck on that school mural gig,” Larissa said with a wave as someone else came up to speak with Verna who dressed like they actually had the money to be here. She ducked out of the area and looked around for Kent or another glass of alcohol.

She was in a considerably better mood than when they’d first pulled up to the art auction and had spent far longer talking with the artists and Stephanie who ran the annual auction for one of Jeff’s favorite charities. Things were even beginning to wind down now. All bids on the silent auction paintings would be over in about fifteen minutes.

Kent had already placed his final bids before she’d ended up spending the last thirty minutes chatting with Verna. She hadn’t wanted to admit he was right, so she had, instead, found a photograph that would work really well in his entryway. A fair truce, she thought.

Larissa grabbed a glass of red wine right as Stephanie walked to the head of the room.

“I want to thank everyone who came and bid tonight. Please remember the artists who are displayed here tonight are all local artists. They will be paid an agreed upon amount for their pieces. Proceeds from the sales will be given to the Childrens Hospital of Nevada for a new kid-friendly MRI machine. And, as it is now 10 o’clock, all bidding is officially closed. Please put any pens down.”

Stephanie stood, silent and waiting, as she waited for people finishing their last bids to set their pens down. Staff from the hospital, who had volunteered to work at the event, began to collect the bidding sheets.

A hand came to rest on her shoulder and Larissa jerked and looked behind her to find Kent smirking at her. He nodded his head out the door then began in that direction. Larissa looked back as Stephanie began going through an overview of how winners would be counted and contacted, realized she had less of a reason than Kent to be listening to this part, and followed him out the door.

He grinned from where he stood and threw something at her. Larissa caught it then looked at it to find a ping pong ball with a bit of adhesive and a bunch of paint stuck to it.

“Wait…” she said, “Is this from that mirror?”

“Yep,” Kent said with a laugh. “Greaser paid for the whole thing, but I got him to give me that. It’s actually what gave me the idea.”

Larissa cackled then noticed what was in front of Kent’s feet: 10 wine glasses set up in a pyramid shape.

Not too much further in front of that—about half-way between where she now stood and Kent, sat another pyramid of wine glasses.

“No.”

Kent brought a hand up to his mouth to cover his laugh.

“That’s not gonna work!” she cried.

“Wanna try?” Kent challenged.

“I’m not going to play beer pong on the ground with wine glasses, red wine that comes from a fucking bottle—not even a box!—and a broken part of an art piece.” She held the ball up and shook it for emphasis.

“I thought you said you liked having a handicap,” Kent pressed. “Or are you too afraid you’ll lose?”

“Fuck you; I’ll wipe the floor with you.”

Kent tapped at his chin. “I don’t know,” he challenged in a sing-song voice.

Larissa walked up to the triangle of wine glasses she would claim as hers and tossed the ball. She crossed her arms and raised a gloating eyebrow at Kent as she sunk it into a glass in the back row.

Game on.

* * *

 

Larissa stretched her jaw as wide as she could to keep it from locking on her completely as the phone rang.

On the second ring, she nearly hung up and called it quits.

On the third, she thought maybe she was being ignored.

On the fourth, he picked up.

Larissa bit her lip and held her breath as her heart rate and blood pressure shot for the moon.

“Lards?”

Shitty’s voice was soft, shaking as much as her hands and breaths were.

Hearing him unsure like this stung her eyes and heart, but it also helped her find her own footing.

“Hey, Shits,” she greeted, managing to sound moderately calm and in charge of her own emotional situation.

Shitty gave a wet and nervous laugh on the other end of the line and Larissa smiled fondly.

“How are you?” she asked.

“Not so great, actually,” he admitted. “I trampled all over my best friend’s needs and boundaries and ended up losing her. Twice.”

Larissa chewed at her bottom lip and nodded. “I don’t know,” she said. “She might have just been needing to find herself a bit more first. There’s a big difference between college and the real world and she wasn’t as ready for it as she thought.”

“Yeah. I’m learning a bit more about that now,” Shitty said and sighed. “I’m sorry I talked over your wants. I’m sorry I used law school as an excuse. I’m sorry my family treated you the way they did and that the only way I knew how to react to it was to fight. I’m sorry you didn’t feel safe with me.”

Larissa sniffed and rubbed her nose with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. She took a few deep, steadying breaths before offering a shaky, mucosal, “Thank you.” Shitty’s family was when the fights had started getting bad between them. Shitty had been all bluster and a loud voice, just like his father. She would have given anything back then to get through one family dinner without being the center of a dispute. Without Shitty or his dad feeling like a discussion about her was something one of them should win. Without feeling each and every raised word stab into her like a barb. She knew Shitty’s relationship with his dad’s side of the family had been poor to start. She simply hadn’t wanted to be the final straw.

She heard Shitty sniff, too. “And I’m also sorry about pushing you with your art,” he said, his voice cracking more and more before devolving into sniffs. He took a long, deep breath in before letting it out slowly and directly into the phone. Larissa flinched at the sound in her ear and pulled the phone away for a few seconds.

Shitty was talking again when she put it back. “—see you succeed, but I should have asked you how I could help rather than pushing solutions you didn’t want.”

“The more money and connections you threw at me, the more it felt like you thought I couldn’t do it on my own,” she explained. Words she had been wanting Shitty to understand without having to say finally began flowing out. “You and Jack and Holster and Ransom and Bitty. I just wanted to prove that I could do it, but every time I tried, one of you was there telling me how or when or to let someone else do it for me.” She swallowed. “I should’ve been more honest about it, rather than just holding it back and letting it fester. I’m sorry, too.”

“Shit, Lards.” Shitty’s voice was back to being strangled. Larissa told herself it wasn’t something she needed to feel guilty over. “You gotta know I’d never think that about you,” he pressed.

Larissa wasn’t able to completely agree, even though she knew enough to know it was probably true. “It’s what I thought about me,” she said. “And it was easier to put that on you guys, instead. I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

“Are we still friends?”

“Maybe not the same way as before, but, yeah. I think we are.”

“Good...So it’s cool to ask about that Parson jersey and glass seats and all those insta mentions?”

Larissa laughed. “Seriously? Shits.”

“Okay, okay. I’m jealous. But that’s my problem, not yours. I’m glad you’re doing well in Vegas. And I’m glad you called.”

“Me, too. Bye, Shits.”

The moment her tears slowed enough to catch her breath, Larissa picked up her phone and hit speed dial.

“Hey!”

She sobbed.

“What do you need?”

She swallowed her tears and took a deep, shaky breath. “Make me smile.”

* * *

 

“Fuck you, Kent Parson.”

“Blowing and fingering allowed?” he asked with a wink.

Larissa flushed and blinked up at him in shock, but remained stock still, clinging to his arms as she did her best not to fall flat on her face.

“I had to look those up _after_ the pong game,” Kent admitted.

Larissa snorted at his grin, but it caused her skates to shift beneath her and she yelped as she froze her entire body, trying to bring it back into alignment so she wouldn’t move ever again.

She had finally managed it, eyes closed, leaning forward, fingernails digging into the flesh of Kent Parson’s forearms, when the fucker decided to move.

“Whyyyyyyyyy?” she cried in a shaking voice as he pulled her slowly across the ice.

“Weren’t you a hockey team manager?” he asked instead of replying. “How do you not know how to skate?”

“Who ever said a hockey team manager had to know to skate?” she petulantly bit back.

“You know, this will be a lot easier if you stop acting so stiff,” Kent pressed. “I promise I won’t let you fall.”

“Then you should just take me back over to the bench,” she argued through gritted teeth.

Kent stopped skating and Larissa thought she might have won. That he’d somehow skate them back the other way—hopefully by turning them around first because skating backwards sounded even more terrifying than skating forwards—and let her escape to dry land where humans were made to live.

“Come on,” Kent said, instead as he moved in closer and lifted her up by her arms. “Stand up straight. Your skates follow your weight, so if you center your balance low over your hips, you’ll stay standing without moving. See?”

Larissa suddenly realized she was standing up all the way and not falling over. Kent was still holding onto her forearms and she was still clinging desperately to his, but it was more a cautionary grasp than required. She peeked an eye open and looked up at him in surprise. She was standing on the ice.

“Not so bad, right?” Kent asked with a proud smirk.

Larissa wanted to wipe the smirk off his face, but she had to admit, “Shitty and I didn’t even get this far when he tried to teach me.”

“Well, that’s because he’s not a professional,” Kent pointed out.

“You’re no coach, either,” Lardo argued.

“Tell that to the Junior Aces I volunteer with.”

“They’d probably agree,” Larissa spouted with a smirk.

“I don’t have to hold onto your arms,” Kent grumbled. “I could just leave you here in the middle of the rink.”

Larissa’s nails dug back into his arms as she scowled at him. “You wouldn’t.”

Kent smirked and looked over at the benches and Christmas decor surrounding the temporary outdoor rink set-up in the mall parking lot. There was a hot chocolate stand nearby and the speakers spat out cheery Christmas Carols the children who skated circles past them belted along with at the top of their lungs.

“Nah,” he agreed. “I did promise to make you smile, after all.”

Larissa followed his gaze to the crowd around them before it dropped back down to her feet at the slightest movement. “How is it even staying frozen? It’s, like, 60 out.”

“No one ever said Vegas skimped on its use of electricity,” Kent replied with a shrug. “There are some with synthetic ice, too, but it’s just not the same.” He turned back to Larissa. “Anyway, you want to slowly lift one foot straight up then bring it back down. Like you’re marching in place.”

Larissa’s face, as Kent pressed again to teach her how to skate, crumbled.

* * *

 

“I talked to Shitty."

Kent knew who Shitty was. The first time Larissa had mentioned him, he’d had to think for a moment, but the moustache and lack of clothing came back fast enough. That was back when Kent learned she wasn’t speaking much with anyone from Samwell. It was also back when he’d learned Shitty was her ex. “Did it go bad?” he asked as he stretched an arm along the back of the couch.

They were back at her apartment. After skating and ice cream—because it was too hot for hot chocolate—Kent had driven her back to her place and, instead of hopping out and waving goodbye like the few other times he’d dropped her off, she’d leaned back in the door to grab her purse and asked, “Wanna come up?”

Larissa frowned into her coffee for a moment of consideration—because it was apparently never too hot or late for coffee—before shaking her head. “No,” she admitted. “No, it went really good. It just…hurt.”

Kent nodded in sympathy.

“We made a lot of stupid mistakes,” she explained. “But we can’t just take ‘em back. Y’know?”

Kent definitely knew that story. He knew how much the regret could eat at you and how the frayed, raw edges remained. “I’m sorry.”

Larissa laughed. “I mean, the huge bruise on my ass is totally gonna hurt more tomorrow morning, so…”

Kent winced. “Sorry about that, too,” he said, remembering how he’d been just a bit too slow to react and she had slammed against the ice on her ass and hands. He’d panicked over her wrists because the last thing she needed was to end up in Urgent Care with a broken one, but she’d smacked at him and made him help her up and, despite her earlier fear of falling, she responded pretty well.

“It’s not much worse than slipping on an icy sidewalk back home,” she had admitted to him. “But I still don’t like it.”

He hadn’t let her fall again after that.

“Kent?”

Kent didn’t realize he had missed his cue in the conversation, or that he’d been wearing a vacant little smile until he saw the odd look Larissa had sent him: one eyebrow raised and mouth pinched into a confused purse. “Hm?”

“You okay?” she asked.

“Oh. Yeah,” he said, sitting up a bit less casually and focusing in on her face again. “I guess. Maybe a bit tired.” Which was definitely the wrong thing to say because she frowned.

“You can go if you need to,” she offered, quickly standing to send him off. “I promise, I’m doing a lot better.” She pointed at her face. “I’m even smiling. Thanks for taking my call, though.”

Kent reached out and grabbed her wrist before she could walk over to the door.

“That’s not what I meant,” he promised, leading her to sit back down. “I’m happy to stay.”

He smiled and let go when she moved to settle back in with a slight flush on her cheeks.

“I’m really glad you got to talk to him,” Kent added. “Figure shit out.”

Larissa’s smile was bittersweet. “Yeah,” she admitted. “We’re going to try being friends again, but we can’t erase what happened and we both know that.” She reached out and picked her paint-splattered mug back up. “It’s kinda refreshing—getting to close that chapter. I know it’s over and it’s not gonna happen again. We can both move on.”

Kent winced and Larissa’s smile faded in concern.

“I didn’t get that with my ex,” he admitted and looked away in embarrassment. “And I’m not going to.”

“I…”

It was the first time he’d said it out loud. It left a forlorn sting in his eyes and nose, but, as if admitting it was all it took, another, bitterness, was removed. “I’m learning that’s okay,” he admitted with a nod as he hunched over and rested his elbows on his knees. His voice felt thick, so he swallowed it down. He thought back to the hockey game against the Falcs at the start of the season, at seeing past Jack Zimmermann. “And I can, and have begun to, grow past it.”

He sent a soft smile at Larissa, meeting her eyes and finding similar scars—similar hurts in the process of healing. “It hurts still,” he admitted and leaned in towards her. She leaned in, too. “But we’re _both_ doing better,” he added. Larissa smiled back at him and nodded in agreement. “And that’s the important part.”

Kent couldn’t tell you who moved first then, but he could tell you, in that moment, it felt inevitable. Everything that had occurred between that UNLV frat house and this moment—each series of coincidences and interactions, of mistakes and miracles—had led them right here, to this very moment, when they both leaned in that little bit more and kissed.

It was soft; seeking. A question and answer as lips brushed, then brushed again.

Then Kent tilted his head one way and Larissa the other and they found their answer.

Larissa crawled her way over the sofa, closing the distance between them and pushing herself into Kent’s lap. His hands shifted immediately to her waist, spreading to cover as much space as he could, pulling the fabric of her t-shirt taut.

“It’s not a rebound,” she pulled away just long enough to say.

Kent nodded and pulled her lower lip in between his own. He knew. It was the same for him. There was, for the first time, nothing to rebound from, only an entire new possibility to explore.

His hand was just also up her shirt and under her bra by the time she asked, “Condoms?”

Kent thought about the last time he’d kept a condom in his wallet—23 years old and attending a frat party of his own—and threw his head back against the sofa as he groaned in frustration.

* * *

 

“Alright. Everyone ready?” Lardo asked as she looked over her screen and eyed her group. They’d managed to finish an adventure two weeks ago, when they’d last played, and were due to start off on a new one today.

The group all smiled and nodded at her in anticipation, shuffling character sheets and spell cards and fiddling with their dice.

She picked up her percentile dice. “First of all…”

100 meant blizzard.

* * *

 

“...with all flights grounded in the Northeast and all flights heading that direction cancelled.”

Kent scratched at his head as he listened to the weather. “Think they’ll cancel our roadie?” he asked Troy, elbowing the man to get his attention then nodding at the television in the breakroom.

“It takes a lot to cancel hockey…” Troy replied.

“They’ve shut down every airport from Newark to Boston,” Kent pointed out. “It’s s’posed to be one for the record books.”

“I wouldn’t mind being home for more than just one day for Christmas this year,” Troy admitted as he watched the woman swaddled in a parka scream against the wind while talking about Philadelphia starting to ground flights now. He turned back to his phone.

Thirty minutes later, it was official. So official even the NHL’s official twitter had stated it. The Aces would be rescheduling their back-to-back games against the Devils and the Islanders for a later date. They would be playing the Bruins in five days, however, and blizzards tended to blow themselves out before that long.

“Got Christmas plans?” Troy asked him as they headed back to the player’s lot after wrapping up for the day, their travel and hockey bags in-hand.

“I was gonna go up to Albany to see my parents, but that’s obviously not happening now…” Kent admitted.

“Well, it’s pretty last minute, but we’ll probably do a proper Christmas dinner if you wanna join. Invite Larissa.”

“I don’t know if we’re quite at that point, yet...”

“No, she cancelled our group this week because she was going to go visit her family for Christmas, right?” Troy asked.

Kent paused and blinked. Lardo was from Boston.

“Shit.”

He pulled out his phone.

Troy shook his head and smiled fondly but waved goodbye and continued to his car, leaving Kent standing in the middle of the parking lot, bag abandoned at his feet to give him an extra hand with which to tap furiously away on his phone.

* * *

 

**Parser**  still got room for 2?

 

**Troy**  of course

 

**Parser**  what time?

 

**Troy**  Food at 2. Don’t come before 1.

* * *

 

The yule log crackled in front of them, drawing Kent out of his doze just as the music playing switched from Silver Bells to Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

“You alright there?” Larissa snorted at him and Kent flushed, but wrapped his arm around her torso, drawing her back against his chest and away from the papers and books she’d spread out along his coffee table.

“Tired,” he grumbled into her neck. “Full.”

“You’re the one who decided to eat thirds and dessert,” she said without any sympathy at all.

Kent huffed, pressed a kiss to the skin his lips had been brushing against and pulled back to look at the yule log blazing bright and hot on the television screen in front of them. Because, unlike the Troys, they were modern people of the northeast, not desert freaks who decided to burn an actual fire when the high of the day was pushing 80.

Larissa pulled away enough to shuffle some papers together.

“Whatcha working on?” he asked.

“The campaign,” Larissa replied as she tucked the papers away.

Kent perked up at that and attempted to catch any information from the notebook before she slammed it shut and stared sternly at him.

“Any hints?” he asked facetiously.

Larissa snorted then eyed him as she pushed the pile to the side. “Start rolling up a new character.”

“Perfect! I’ve been wanting to introduce Purrs’ sister from the same litter, Kit, into the story. She’s a rogue.”

Larissa groaned at the chaos she knew Kent with a rogue would create. “You and this group give me so much hell,” she said.  Flopping back against the couch. “I plan for six possibilities and you still come up with something else you all want to do.”

Kent snickered, having heard this complaint from her on more than one occasion already. “Just wanna keep you on your toes.” He watched Larissa raise a judgmental eyebrow at him and his grin grew into a smirk.

“Is that a short joke?” she asked and his smirk broke out into true laughter.

“A short joke would be my then saying it’s the only way we can see you,” he finally said.

“Fucker,” Larissa said as she reached over to pinch him. “Your jokes are shit.”

Kent’s laughter went high-pitched as he fought off her attacks up until his stomach reminded his brain exactly how much they’d eaten at Troy’s that afternoon. He groaned and collapsed back against the sofa, letting out a weak cry when Larissa’s pinch landed.

“Just sit back and watch the yule log loop.”

Kent hummed in thought as he looked back at the large television screen and the crackling log. Growing up, they’d had a fireplace at home and it had been lit pretty regularly, but it had only been part of the ambiance; something to have in the background, not the main event. And his opinion on that hadn’t changed much twenty years later, either. He leaned over to grab his ipad off the table where Larissa had left it after looking through his digital copy of the Monster Manual. “I’ve got a better idea.”

She leaned over to close out of the app before Kent could read too much on a...Cambion? “What is it?” she pressed.

Kent pulled the ipad out of her reach and opened Netflix. He started the yule log on there and set it up on the table in front of them.

“Two yule logs?” Larissa asked with a raised eyebrow and a smirk.

“Nah,” Kent said as he picked up the game controller and woke it up. “Small yule log and big movie.” He exited back to his Netflix main page and went to hit up the Christmas movies list. “I’ll bet you love It’s A Wonderful Life. You love that old romantic shit.”

“I love how you’ve already liked all the cheesy Christmas romcoms,” she chirped right back before snuggling deeper into the couch. “I think they have Charlie Brown Christmas on Netflix right now, actually.”

“Dude!” Kent said, pausing his search to look her way. “For real?”

Larissa smirked. “For real.”

Kent dove back into his search, clicking through each page of movies until he realized he’d gone two past it and had to back up to find it. He set the controller back down when the snowing lake appeared and sank into the sofa and against Larissa, who’d stretched along the first two cushions. “I love that Christmas tree.”

She wrapped her arms and legs around him like an octopus and nodded.

* * *

 

“Alright! Everyone’s got their character all finished?” Larissa asked as she set the map out on the board and finished picking the last character piece they’d need for tonight.

“Yeah!” Kent shouted with the three kids from where he was crouched between Bristol and Spencer.

Larissa’s face went deadpan. “Dude. You’re not even a player.”

Kent stood up and moved to the head of the dining table with a laugh. “But I’m ready.” He sat down behind the DM screen.

Larissa sat down next to Trenton and snorted.

“I am!” Kent tapped his fist against the table. “I prepared all week!”

Larissa shook her head and picked up her pencil. “You are so not ready.”

Kent stuck his tongue out at her and Bristol laughed. “Daddy!” she scolded.

“Mommy deserved it,” he argued.

“Mommy’s been the DM almost every time we’ve played since we met. She knows what she’s talking about and is ready for a break,” Larissa interjected. “Chop, chop, DM.”

Kent grumbled and shuffled his papers behind the screen. “Your character’s dying first.” But then he took a sip of his water, cleared his throat and looked over his screen to make eye contact with all three kids and Larissa.

“It’s midday and the sun is high in the sky as you take your lunch near a river you will have to cross sooner or later. It looks a bit too deep and fast to do so here, however. The last town you had stopped in had promised a shallow place for fording not too much further upstream, so you’ve been keeping your eye out for it. The four of you are a traveling band of adventurers! Having met only recently, you are still getting to know each other—for as much as you might want or care to—but you’ve all responded to a call for well-paid help in dealing with an orc insurgency in the border city of Katalan and are traveling together because safety is found in numbers.”

He paused for a moment to check that everyone is listening closely, then leaned in closer. “Suddenly,” he said with greater intensity, “The water in the river begins to slap and swirl around itself, growing in one particular portion in a way water does not naturally lend itself to doing. It lashes out at Conan the Barbarian—”

“Hey!” Larissa cried.

“I told you I’d kill you first,” Kent teased and rolled his dice. “And it misses. You’ve stumbled upon a water elemental’s territory and it does not appreciate the intrusion. Everyone, take your d20s—yeah, the big ones—and roll initiative.”


End file.
